


Bonnie and Kai: Before

by BorgiaBabe



Series: High [6]
Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Confusion, F/M, First Kiss, First Love, First Time, Friendship/Love, Love/Hate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-06
Updated: 2021-01-06
Packaged: 2021-03-16 15:42:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28584444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BorgiaBabe/pseuds/BorgiaBabe
Summary: The One When Bonnie Wonders; How can Kai hate her when they were each other’s first everything?
Relationships: Bonnie Bennett/Malachai "Kai" Parker
Series: High [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2091318
Comments: 8
Kudos: 22





	1. Now

**Author's Note:**

> A two-shot!

The mild chill in the air has become permanent when Nora finally asks. “What’s his deal with you?” It’s been over a month since their encounter in the hallway and they’ve both kept a wide berth from Kai. Not like it matters, whenever he sees them together Bonnie can feel his irritation from across a crowded room.

Bonnie actually lets out a huff of a laugh at that question and shrugs a shoulder. “What’s his deal with everyone he ever meets in life? Ever?” 

Nora shrugs. “I don’t know; I’ve known him for a while. Like, since we were babies.” And this is news to Bonnie. Before she left to follow her father overseas, Nora was in their orbit, but only for three or so years. She’d seen Nora and Kai exchange words back then, that was true, but she didn’t know they knew each other before Nora arrived in third grade. “Our families are kinda tight. Our parents went to college together and stayed friends. So, yeah I know he hates everyone in general.” She shoves her hands in the pockets of her cute, dark orange cardigan. “But he looks at you like he wants to kill you sometimes.”

Well. 

Bonnie wouldn’t have put it quite like that before this moment; they have their... they have what they have, but she doesn’t think he wants to kill her. Maybe he hates her, sure. But it’s not like he wants to strangle her. “He looks at everyone like that,” she says dismissively. “Kai and I, we talk. Sometimes... sort of. We’ve been alone. He doesn’t try to stab me or anything.” 

“Nope,” Nora takes her hands out of her pockets and hops up onto the bleachers, walking with her arms out for a few seconds like she really needs the assistance with balance before dropping them to her sides. “No, he definitely hates you. I’d know - he hates me too. He looks at you like he looks at me. Well, not exactly the same, but it’s pretty close. We grew up like cousins and Kai can’t fucking stand me now.”

“What? Why? You literally just got back to town.” Nora looks out onto the football field where practice rages on in the middle. She shrugs, but Bonnie sees her eyes glaze over for just a second. “I have no idea,” she sort of sighs - she sounds tired all of a sudden. But then she’s perking up again and nods her head forward. “Think Care was right? That I could make the squad?” she grins. 

They are coming up on a pack of cheerleaders in the middle of their own practice. Some are in full practice uniforms, some have on part of the uniform, but most just have on shorts and T-shirts. Hyper music is blaring from a bluetooth stereo next to Caroline who watches the routine closely, her keen eye critical. Kat is taking a selfie next to her. She’s either taking advantage of her bestie privileges or she’s not in this part of the routine they're practicing. Knowing Caroline, its the latter. Best friend or not the whole routine _will_ be perfect. 

"Oh, who is that?” she hears Nora practically purr.

“Who?” Bonnie turns to see Nora is staring straight ahead, and Bonnie looks forward to see a familiar sight that makes her nose wrinkle happily, mouth twisting upwards. She squints playfully. “What are  _you_ doing here?” Bonnie asks when her, and Jamie meet in the middle, both of their eyes shining warmth into the other’s. 

“Isn’t it obvious?” He puts his arm around her neck, as usual, and rubs at her curls. She pulls away laughing. “I’m here to see you!” His voice is teasing, warm, and sweet. If she didn’t know him she’d fall for it. "I missed you. I couldn’t stand another minute not seeing you Bontastic-”

“Ok,” she cuts him off. "For real this time, please?” 

He shrugs, but his brow furrows as he drops the charm. “I failed my first Chem test. I’m having a minuscule” he holds up his pointer and thumb millimeters away from each other in front of his face “Freshman melt down in which I’ve decided I’m an idiot. One who can’t remember at least half of the periodic table and therefore will never make it to being a Physical Therapist. So since I’m  _obviously_ brilliant, I decided to come back here.” He throws his arms out, indicating the school and field especially. “To rethink my future. Reminisce about the good ol days.” He shrugs. “Maybe apply to be a janitor."

Bonnie rolls her eyes. “It’s your first test; stop acting like me right now; that’s literally my only job. Also, you’ve barely been gone, so what good old days? Also - you’re nineteen.” 

“You’re just too young to understand,” he sighs dramatically and Bonnie quirks her lips at him. 

“Mmm,” she hums sarcastically. ”I forgot, your ten month lead is just a vast ocean that cannot be crossed.”

“I know. You’ll get there eventually though. You’ll see,” he tosses out and Bonnie rolls her eyes, shrugging off her bag and sitting down on the bleachers. She already knows what’s coming next. 

“And now,” he says delightedly, as if getting to the main course of a meal, charm back full in effect, " _who_ is this?”

“I’m Nora,” Nora answers for herself, hopping down off of the bleachers she’s been standing on this whole time, her layered sheer skirt billowing up just a little as she lands. She doesn’t smooth it out on the side where the fabric is still stuck to her thigh, instead leaving it hiked up just a little higher to ‘accidentally’ show more smooth toned leg. She grins. “And you are…?”

“Oh, well, you can call me anything you want if you’re nice about it,” Jamie jokes, voice slipping into that honey dipped tone that makes the girls go wild. “But the official title is Jamie. I’m Bonnie’s brother.” He flashes that perfectly charming smile that has Bonnie rolling her eyes again and looking back out onto the field.

“Ooooh, so  _you’re_ Jamie.” she hears Nora reply. 

“I know, my name must  stay in BonBon’s mouth. Tell me all the good things she says about me.” 

Giggles float over. “No,” Nora says flirty and light. “But I sort of remember you. I used to go here. Well not  here ; the middle school, years ago.”

“Oh no,” Jamie says, voice mock in its seriousness. “I’d remember something as pretty as you in my school, no matter what year.”

That's Bonnie’s cue to officially zone out of the conversation. Jamie around a Gemini, especially one like Nora? Yeah, Bonnie doesn’t even exist right now.

She watches as the cheerleaders, happy and smiles bursting, clapping and kicking. Chanting the school’s rally anthem, they go to move into two formations, intertwining fingers for the smaller girls to step onto to be thrown into the air. One set does ok from what Bonnie sees, but she’s no cheering expert. But the other set obviously ends badly; the tiny redheaded girl lands, but barely, foot slipping and then she’s on her side in the grass. She brings another girl down with her, and everyone except Caroline and Kat rush to see if everyone is ok. 

Caroline just squeezes the bridge of her nose, closes her eyes, and takes a deep breath. When the rest of the team has helped both girls up and have made sure both are ok, they face Caroline and Kat, out of breath and seemingly prepared for what is coming. 

After a few long moments to compose herself Caroline opens her eyes and claps her hands once, hard. Kat does nothing, just stands beside her, hip popped out, long chocolate hair in a tight ponytail and still scrolling through her phone. “Cameron,” Caroline bites out, crisp and clear, authoritative despite her naturally sweet voice. “If you can’t stay in formation and make those wrists like fucking iron, I’m just going to kick you off the team, seriously. You’re going to break Kay's freaking neck. Can you NOT catch her? Let me see your hands- can you still not make a basket? Let me know.”

Cameron’s eyes are upset, but not shining with tears. None of the others look surprised at how Caroline is speaking to her. Her weak wrists must be common knowledge by the way some girls eyes slide to the side to catch each other’s. 

“I’m serious,” Caroline continues, "let me know, because the game is in, like, two weeks, so if I need to, I don’t know, switch you out or kick you off the team let me know, _now._ I don’t care if you have to wrap your wrists so tight your hands pops off, if Kay comes down on her ass again you’re out. I already have your alternate.” 

“No, I got it,” Cameron, an extremely pretty Mexican and Black girl with dark slanted eyes and skin the color of expensive honey, says calmly and reaches up to tighten her ponytail. 

“Ok.” Caroline leaves it at that and turns to everyone else ticking off other details like a machine. “Taylor you sucked; your kicks are too low, go stretch for a couple of minutes. Sharmaine can you go help her? Like, push her knee to her damn forehead if you have to. Jamie you sucked, you’re two seconds too slow on everything. Everything. Run through it with Deena. Deena, please?” And Deena nods, bright blue eyes calm, but determined. "Luce, not bad, but go stretch with Taylor. Your kicks are way, way better than last time, but I need a little bit more. I’ve seen you do it before. Everyone else, that was really good. I’m proud of ya’ll. Take a break.” Everyone disperses to either do what they were told or get some water. Done with critique, Caroline turns to Kat. Even though she speaks lowly, Bonnie can still hear her. “Can you go do tumbles or something with the rest of them. I gotta run to the bathroom.”

“Again, bitch?” Kat says, rolling her eyes. "What did you eat?”

“I don’t even know. But, if I’m not back in ten, just start the routine again. And if Kay falls tell Cam she can just go home.” Kat nods, rolls her eyes again, and goes to put her phone in her backpack which sits on the green nearby. She goes over to the girls and Caroline walks away quickly.

“Hey guys,” she says as she hurries by, not even waiting for them to answer her back as she jogs back towards the school. 

“Hey,” Bonnie answers back anyway, and with Nora still in front of him Jamie probably didn’t even notice her. Bonnie now looks onto the field where the football players are. She's too far away to hear what they‘re saying, but it’s all always just noise to her anyway. Numbers, flags, whistles, heavy gear colliding, grunts, screams, yells as the crowd goes wild. It’s not her thing.

But she looks for his number and sees him almost immediately. Lucky number 07. He’s lining up to do a goalpost kick. He misses, and it hits the blue post. He rips his helmet off and Coach Simon yells something to him, but Kai remains stoic. Doesn’t even nod. Just puts his helmet back on, catches the ball tossed at him, lines it up, and prepares to kick again. He sprints, his foot connects and the ball soars forward only to go just right of the post at the last moment. Another miss. 

She rarely goes to games, but everyone in the school knows he’s a good kicker. He’s  thee clutch player and has pushed the score forward enough times to nudge a win that he’s a ‘thing.’

 _He must be having a bad day_ , she thinks. He takes his helmet off again and looks up to the sky. When he looks back down he starts to head over in her direction. The closer he gets, the more he seems to realize who he’s walking towards because he hesitates when he realizes she’s the one sitting in front of him. From this distance she can see his eyes. Despite having a rough day on the field they look soft as he takes her in. 

That stupid warm feeling she gets when he looks at her like that begins to seep into her chest. The corners of her mouth twitch upwards on their own and for a few seconds it’s like he forgets they haven’t spoken in weeks. He almost smiles back, but then his eyes flick over to where Nora stands with Jamie and the moment is gone. He veers over to where his water bottle is and he drinks deeply from it, ignoring her.

The warm feeling fades quickly and her throat tightens and stings. She gets up, suddenly wanting to be away from here, and away from him. The sticky buds in the bottom of her bag have been calling to her since third period anyway. She turns to her friends. “Alright you guys,” she announces “I’m gone.”

“Oh, we’ll come with you.” Nora smiles prettily, eyes warm.

“I’m just headed home,” she lies. She’s really headed to her favorite spot to be alone and smoke, a copse of trees in the woods that isn’t too far from her neighborhood. “You guys keep doing.... whatever,” she waves a hand between them, smiling “this is.”

Nora ignores her protests and grabs her hand, twining their fingers together. “You’re a part of whatever this is,” she says and drags her forward. Jamie squeezes between them, breaking the hold and swings his arms over both of their shoulders and Bonnie knows his Venus is just as proud as a peacock, having two girls on either arm right now, even if one he considers a sister. She laughs at the thought and he grins down at her, knowing she’s laughing at him. 

“Yeah,” he says, leading them away, “let me stop acting like I’ve peaked and this is going to be as far as I’m going to go. I’m over it,” he says. They walk at a comfortable pace towards the pathway that leads away from field and Bonnie pretends she doesn’t feel Kai’s glare square in the middle of her back. Instead she idly listens to Jamie and Nora’s flirting over her head.It’s oddly comforting - safe white noise from the people she cares for.

Soon she’s waving goodbye to them, wiping away a sloppy forehead head kiss from Jamie, promising Nora she’ll text later, and acting like she’s about to go inside. She knows that the second her father sees her it’s a done deal until he leaves for work at ten tonight, so she acts like she’s digging through her bag for her keys while she actually watches Nora and Jamie disappear from sight.

She waits another full five minutes before hopping back off of her porch and making her way down the street in the opposite direction towards a familiar line of trees. 


	2. Then

_Can you fuck someone you truly hate?_

Bonnie ponders this question, hunched over as she breaks down the sticky buds on her Chemistry notebook, her back against her favorite tree. The red and purple of magic infusions waft up in soft plumes around her as she works. 

Nora said Kai hates Nora, and Bonnie doesn’t doubt it. She hasn’t been oblivious enough to not realize Kai’s agitation with Bonnie peaks significantly when she’s with the other girl.  
So.  
Nora knows what Kai Parker flavored hate tastes like, and _she’s_ sure he hates Bonnie. And it makes her wonder.

How can you have confusing, soul melting, _hungry_ sex over, and over, and over again with someone you can’t stand when you have the ability to hate as deeply as Kai Parker can?

  
How can Kai hate her when they were each other’s first everything?

  
 _She_ doesn’t hate _him_.

  
Despite it all; despite the fact that he makes her stomach hurt whenever she sees him, and that she sometimes feels as if she’s being stared down by a snake with its tail rattling whenever she’s even in the same vicinity as him doesn’t mean she hates him. Even the fact that she sometimes thinks viciously to herself _I hate you_ when he’s being a compete asshole Bonnie knows she doesn’t mean it.

  
She never has, and doesn’t think that she can. Call her sentimental (or stupid) but Bonnie can’t hate someone who used to be her other, other half. Besides Jamie, he was her first best friend.

  
They played with celestial building blocks in pre-school together, they always laid their individual zodiac charts atop the other before even knowing what Synastry really was. He was the one who used to stick up for her when the seizures from her undiagnosed Interception began and the kids with no remorse would drop in front of her when she passed by.

He wasn’t her first kiss (that was Carter in a treehouse when she was, eight, and it was forgotten about the second it was over) but Kai was her first kiss that mattered. She remembers how her thirteen year old heart tried to pound out of her chest when he pressed his lips against hers out of no where, laying her onto her bed covered in pink pillows patterned with white stars, her bedroom door wide open but luckily no one checking in. Bonnie still remembers liking it _so much_ , so _immediately_ that she'd wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him down so he was heavy on top of her.

Even though she hadn’t known what the hell she was doing she’d still tried her best, trying to keep up when he slipped his tongue into her mouth, softly finding hers and literally making her gasp as her stomach exploded with even more butterflies. 

It hadn’t lasted long; it felt like it lasted forever, but it didn’t. Too soon, she'd heard the sounds of her mother’s light footsteps making their way down the hallway to check in. Specifically to make sure that what was currently happening was exactly what was _not_ happening and she’d pushed him away, shooting up in bed and getting completely off of it. She'd crossed her room to her bookshelf, blindly pulling a book off of a random shelf and turned, acting like she was holding it out to him. “It’s great,” she had breathed, hoping like hell her mother couldn't detect that she was about to pass out from all the sensations overwhelming her. “It’s really really good. Like the best book I’ve ever read.” 

She hadn’t been talking about the book, but about how her body was buzzing at the knowledge that she finally knew what it felt like to kiss him like she’d been wanting to for so long. Before she’d even understood what the feeling really meant, but never said anything about. Not even to Jamie or her mother. 

Kai had looked a little confused, staring at the book in her hand, but then his face cleared and he reached out to take it. Bonnie can still remember her mother’s heavy gaze on her back. “Seems a little girly,’ he’d said, clearing his throat but took it anyway, “but I’ll read it.”

He still has that copy of _Anne of Green Gables_. She sees it on his overly stuffed bookshelf every time she goes over there.

It was exactly fifty eight days later (that felt like years in horny teenager time) that after more stolen kisses and things getting further and further each time, they finally had their first unprotected fumble in his room when Mr. Parker had run out quickly to grab some garlic powder from the market down the street, miraculously leaving only the two of them left alone in the entire house. 

Her body still remembers every moment; how quickly he'd slid his long body on top of her smaller one, and how easily she'd let him, feeling nervous, and excited, and scared all at once. Her hands still remember the feeling of his soft cotton T-shirt as she helped him pull it off and her fingers remember how his own felt as they both fumbled with the cool buttons of their jeans.

It had hurt a little, but he was soft and methodical when it came down to it. Like he’d researched what to do before hand; go slow, kiss her softly, whisper how pretty she was in her ear. It had felt good, but not great, but that had be irrelevant to her then. The fact that Kai had felt that way about _her_ to make her the first one he’d done this with made her heart sing. 

It was quick, of course, and they were barely finished dressing when the front door downstairs had opened and slammed shut and Mr. Parker had headed straight up the stairs to check in on them. Honestly, she still till this day thinks they were so lucky that she hadn't gotten pregnant. But after that first time everything was perfect. _Everything_ for Bonnie was literally rose tinted because he didn’t mind holding her hand in the hallways, or kissing her on the cheek, and he was sweet to her and mostly her only. Not to mention once started, they literally had sex anywhere they could. 

Then six months later Bonnie went to sleep happy and woke up ready to cry. And it never stopped.

She’d heard of Intercepted Puberty being harder than average, but she hadn't expected to wake up every morning ready to jump off of a cliff, the feeling rarely dissipating.

Kai tried. He did. But the rush of teenage hormones that come with puberty combined with the natural depression that overtook most of the Intercepted sunk into her very bones and she began to shrink away from everyone.   
  
What she’d wanted, Bonnie and Kai, KaiandBonnie, tapered off because even the peace he brought her became tainted with the new influx of negative thoughts. Ugly thoughts that whispered lies in her ear, like whenever he said she was pretty he was lying. And that he didn’t choose her to be his first, she was just the only one around who wasn’t afraid of ‘Crazy Kai’ and he was really just a horny teenage boy who found an idiot. 

They'd drifted apart; she’d drifted away from everyone that she was close to, or she tried to. Everyone except Jamie and that was literally only because he used to live across the street and her mother would never say no to letting him in the house. He’d sit with her for hours as she stared blankly at whatever he decided to pull up on the tv screen, made jokes when he saw she could handle them, let her soak his shoulder with her tears when sadness washed over her with no warning...

A bird chirps in the distance and Bonnie blinks, the sound bringing her back to the present. Back to the question at hand; can you fuck someone you truly hate? Can you hate someone that you can’t keep drifting towards, even five years later? How can he hate her the way Nora claims he does if when they aren’t fighting and everything _almost_ feels like it used to he pulls her towards him and kisses her like he won’t get to do it again? How can he want to ‘kill her’ when even when they are angry, or high, or both and still having sex the way he looks at her has her burying her face into his throat or shoulder because it all feels like too much?

She puts the spare flower back into its baggie as she shakes the images out of her mind. Just the thought makes her feel out of control, like she can’t separate her feelings, everything tangled up and tied together hopelessly.

Finally finished rolling up her Ascendent, she sticks it in her mouth and really settles back against the rough bark of the tree she sits beneath. Briefly she imagines, for what seems like the thousandth time, lighting the leaf up with her mind like she would be able to if her Calling line was nudged over one degree on the Earth’s axis. Instead she digs into the pocket of her jeans for a lighter and uses that instead. 

The smoke fills her lungs, the world gets hazy, and when she lets her eyelids slip shut all she can see is that soft look Kai gave her as he walked towards her on the green

**Author's Note:**

> A little longer. Hope you don’t mind.


End file.
